


Grief and Love Are Sisters

by Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Michael Burnham Needs a Hug, Missing Scene, Mutual Masturbation, No Synthehol Here, POV Michael Burnham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26974915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/pseuds/Miri%20Cleo
Summary: The sixth entry for "that" missing scene from 1.14, except this is the one where they cry.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Katrina Cornwell
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16





	Grief and Love Are Sisters

In truth, Michael had no idea it was the middle of the night. It had all been one endless waking cycle since even before their return, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually slept. Cornwell looked worse than Michael felt though, but it was only now that Michael had finished, spilled every last detail that she realized it. 

"I should go." She rose, as did the admiral. 

"Sit."

Michael did without hesitation, and she watched Cornwell take out two glasses, holding them between her fingers as she set them on the table with a bottle that Michael could only assume was some sort of alcohol. She poured them as if she'd done it hundreds of times before, a slight twist at the finish, not wasting a drop. When she slid one in front of Michael, the scent was unmistakably Earth whiskey. Rare now. Delicate and cherished. 

"Would you have known," the admiral asked, "that she wasn't your Georgiou? Without context, after all the years you served together...would you have known?"

Michael fingered the glass. "Admiral, I…"

"We're having a drink together at oh-three hundred, so you may as well call me Katrina. But you won't, and frankly I prefer it that way." She took a long gulp from the glass, and Michael noticed the circles underneath her eyes. 

"I don't know." Michael looked into the glass, staring hard at the honey colored liquid to avoid the admiral's eyes. Finally, she took a drink, the kick of rye burning her throat all the way down. "I'd like to think I would."

"You wouldn't." The words were flavored with a bitterness that Michael could taste too. "I didn't." She drained her glass and looked at Michael expectantly, waiting until Michael did the same. And even as Michael coughed, the admiral filled their glasses again. 

"He fooled me too," Michael said. 

The admiral raised her refreshed glass in a gesture that Michael knew as a toast. They both drank. No, Michael wouldn't have known. That wasn't quite true. She wouldn't have _wanted_ to know. She didn't want to know now. But she understood the raw grief and anger. Lorca's death was one thing. But the betrayal came after nine months of trying to hold the Federation together. Michael looked at the admiral, this time meeting her eyes, holding them even though it unnerved her. 

It was better than looking at the ghost in the quarters two deck down. Michael sipped the whiskey, this time letting it linger, teasing out the rye and the malt before she swallowed it. If she were being honest with herself, and Michael always tried to be honest with herself, she was weighing the moment. Across from her was Admiral Katrina Cornwell gripping her glass too tightly, sleek arms bare and a tell of a woman who cared about her body, eyes dark with grief and anger and desire. It was desire that Michael had the most difficulty reading in anyone. But she _knew_ what she was seeing now. 

"We should take the plan to Command," Michael said, her voice more measured to her ears than in her mind. 

"Then we should stop wasting time."

In the space of the breath Michael drew in, they were on their feet, moving together with frightening intent. Michael felt the admiral's lips willing her own to part. Michael recognized the taste of grief, of desperation and resolve. She drank it in even though she knew it couldn't fill the void inside her heart. A beat and then they broke. Michael's eyes trailed down as she felt the admiral's fingers graze the space on her chest where her badge would be. 

There was no reason to turn away. Michael closed her eyes, willed her body to relax and her desire to bubble up as the admiral began to kiss her neck. They shed clothing piece by piece as the admiral nudged her toward the bed, each little push an unspoken demand that let Michael yield herself piece by piece. 

"This won't bring him back," Michael said as her back hit the mattress. 

"No." The admiral straddled Michael, her hair falling over her shoulders. "And nothing will make her who you want her to be." The crows feet at the corners of her eyes deepened as she smiled--a smile that was humorless, wistful. "If you don't need this…"

"I need this." The words tumbled out before Michael could think. She didn't want to think, to go down the haunted corridors of memory, and yet… The admiral's mouth was on her nipple, tongue circling before her teeth scraped it. It was enough to pull Michael out of her mind, and she arched into the touch, and she found herself reaching for the admiral's hair, twisting it through her fingers. 

"That's better." The admiral's breath was warm against her skin. 

Michael was wet. Her body was ready. She wanted fingers inside of her. She wanted the absolute oblivion of pleasure to tear her apart, if only for a moment. Her mind was her own worst enemy though, and Michael sighed as she let the admiral's hair slip away.

"I… This is a bad idea."

She watched as the admiral closed her eyes, lips drawn into a tight line before she rolled off of Michael and onto her back. "You're right. It is."

Yet neither of them moved. Michael's nipples were still drawn against the perfectly temperate cabin air. She felt the admiral's hand cover her own, and that intimacy was more than the promise of what they turned away from. 

"Did you love him?" Michael's throat was tight, and in answer, the admiral's laugh was dry. 

"I loved something in him." She was frank, but her voice told Michael that something inside of the admiral was mourning deeply. She longed to reach for that part and pull it close because she knew it was kindred. "But you loved her completely," the admiral said. 

"I," her voice came out so quietly that Michael scarcely knew if she was only thinking, "didn't know."

"I don't know that I ever did." 

Michael only looked over once and not again after that. But she saw the admiral's eyes were glazed with a film of tears. She twined their fingers together. Soon, Michael could hear the hitch in the admiral's breath, and she was flooded with need. She put her palm between her legs, slipping her fingers through her course curls to find her labia already slick. 

When she closed her eyes, Michael heard the admiral's every breath. She could feel each time the admiral pushed her fingers into herself as she ground her clit into her palm. Michael could feel it building because it was building inside of her. Those fingers were her fingers, as she thrust her hips upward. And it grew in her, filling her, growing and threatening and finally pulsing out in a cry that was more a sob. And beside her, she felt the tension in the admiral's body in the grip of her hand, silent but a wail nonetheless. 

Before their skin had grown cold, the admiral's fingers slipped away. Michael touched her chest, that emptiness there still duty bound, and she rose to silently collect her clothing. Their duty was what they held to now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, GlassesOfJustice, for beta work and before that for reminding me that scene existed.


End file.
